The Case of the Universal Monsters Part 2
Hello Cassettes and welcome back to the Black Case Diaries! We’re three old monsters learning everything we can about movies and TV and *hopefully* teaching you in the process *introduce yourself*.
Frightening February (and most of March) went by in a flash. We focused on creating our first-ever live episode with Moment, which means we didn’t have a chance to release full-length episodes. So, we’re extending Frightening February into Monster March!
The last time we gathered together, we talked about the history of the Universal Monster movies and their impact on film. We also covered the first two films of Universal’s monster verse: Dracula and Frankenstein. This week, we’re continuing to look at the other influential Universal Monster movies that made a lasting mark on horror media!
So grab your popcorn and get ready to pull the blanket up to your eyes, it’s time for another dive into the Monsterverse!
The Mummy (1932)
After the incredible popularity of James Whales’ Frankenstein, Universal and Carl Laemmle Jr. needed more horror films to continue their success. Instead of adapting classic horror literature, the studio decided to capitalize on one of the most popular events of the 1920s: the excavation of King Tutankhamen’s tomb.
In 1922, British archeologist Howard Carter led an expedition in Egypt in search of the tomb of a Pharaoh. In November of that year, the tomb of King Tutankhamen was found. It was said that there was an inscription inside the tomb, promising death to those that disturbed the king’s remains. Shortly after the burial chamber had been opened in 1923, one of Carter’s companions, Lord Carnarvan, died of blood poisoning caused by an insect bite. This fanned the flames of speculation that anyone involved in the expedition was cursed. By 1929, eleven other people connected to the excavation of the tomb died young or of unnatural causes, leading some newspapers to blame the so-called “Mummy’s Curse.”
Scientists later found that there was no significant connection between exposure to the tomb and survival, meaning that those present when the tomb was opened were no more likely to die within 10 years than other westerners in Egypt at the time. Science aside, the story took off. It inspired a lot of media, including Universal’s The Mummy (1932).
Carl Laemmle Jr. assigned Nina Wilcox Putnam and Richard Schayer to create a story for their next “monster” movie with their star Boris Karloff in mind. The two produced a nine-page treatment titled Cagliostro after learning about the famed Italian charlatan, Giuseppe Balsamo (aka Alessandro di Cagliostro.) The original tale followed an ancient magician that claimed to have lived for centuries. Screenwriter John Balderson heavily revised the script, transforming the title character into an Egyptian Mummy.
Summary
In the film, Boris Karloff plays Ardath Bey/Imhotep (named for an ancient Egyptian architect and high priest). In the film, Imhotep is an ancient Egyptian mummy who was killed for attempting to resurrect his deceased lover, Ankh-esen-amun. After being discovered and accidentally brought to life by a team of archaeologists, he searches for Ankh-esen-amun, whom he believes has been reincarnated in the modern world.
Balderson’s script had many striking similarities to his earlier work, especially Dracula. The studio even recycles set decorations and props from Dracula in the film.
The Mummy was Carl Freund’s directorial debut. He was a groundbreaking cinematographer, having worked on classics like Metropolis and All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). He was an innovator that pioneered filming techniques that are still used today.
Universal’s number one make-up artist Jack Pierce crafted the look of the film's central monster character. Boris Karloff sat for eight hours so Pierce could perfect the look, even though the character only had a few minutes of screentime.
Although Universal claimed that Pierce researched ancient embalming techniques, make-up expert Rick Baker has said that he doesn’t know what research could have been done.
The make-up was a combination of spirit gum and painted cotton that was glued to Karloff’s face. It was painful to remove. The costume department also forgot to give him a zipper in his full-body suit, so Karloff could not use the restroom.
Willy Pogany was the art director responsible for the beautiful murals and hieroglyphics used in the film. Cinematographer Charles Stumar used visual elements that enticed the audience to imagine the mummy before his screen debut. At first, the film only shows pieces of the “monster,” like the hand and the bandage.
The film stars Boris Karloff as Ardath Bey/Imhotep, Zita Johann as Helen Grosvenor or Ankh-esen-amun, as well as David Manners, Edward Van Sloan and Arthur Byron.
Zita Johann was a stage actress who took the role despite her dislike for Hollywood. Because this was Carl Freund's first film, he wanted to use Johann as a scapegoat if the picture did not do well. So, he attempted to set her up to appear as a “difficult” actress. He asked her to film a scene in the nude from the waist up. To his surprise, Johann agreed as long as he could find a way to get it past the censors.
Freund also didn’t provide Johann with a chair on set and made her stand against a board so that she wouldn’t crease her dress. Filming took a lot out of her, and the actress claimed to have had two near-death experiences during the shoot.
The Mummy was a middling success. Although having less of an impact on culture than Dracula and Frankenstein, it inspired a number of spin-offs, remakes, and reimaginings.
There are no official sequels but some of the reimagined films include The Mummy's Hand (1940), The Mummy's Tomb (1942), The Mummy's Ghost (1944), and The Mummy's Curse (1944).
Although it has a different plot, the more recent 1999 film claims that it is a remake of the 1932 classic. It shares several characteristics with a lot of other remakes of classic science fiction and horror movies, including being produced and distributed by the same studio.
In 2017, Universal made an attempt to launch the Dark Universe, with remakes of their most famous movie monsters. They began with a very poorly received reboot of The Mummy starring Tom Cruise.
The Invisible Man (1933)
After Frankenstein, director James Whale wanted any excuse to avoid filming a sequel. Luckily for him, the studio had begun working on a film adaptation of HG Wells’ 1897 scientific romance, The Invisible Man. Production had been put on hold because adapting the book appeared to be more difficult than expected. When Whale took over as director, he threw out every potential script written for the film, and hired R. C. Sherriff to write one that was true to the novel.
Often hailed as the father of modern sci-fi, HG Wells’ work was very influential. Although he wasn’t the first to write about invisibility, he was one of the first to put a scientific spin on the concept. He believed that motion pictures would be the most important art form of the 20th century, but he was hesitant to have his novels adapted.
His book Island of Doctor Moreau had already been produced by Paramount before The Invisible Man and renamed Island of Lost Souls. Wells was not happy to see his multi-layered social satire be turned into a horror movie.
He was very political- a socialist. In the novel, the main character speaks more like a political revolutionary and not really a scientist. He wants to destroy the current social order because he feels so alienated from it
Carl Laemmle Jr basically let James Whale do whatever he wanted with the film since Whale wouldn’t get to direct the movie he wanted, which was a sequel to All Quiet on the Western Front. Whale also assured Laemmle that he wasn’t filming The Invisible Man just to get out of a Frankenstein sequel, which was clearly a lie.
When The Invisible Man was in early development, Universal was just happy to have the rights to the book name and the author for publicity. They were not really planning on using the original story. They basically offered every writer at Universal a chance to write the script.
It took a while for Whale to convince R.C Sherriff to do a screenplay. Sheriff had to find a copy of the original book in a Las Angeles bookstore because the studio didn’t even own a copy. Preston Sturges also contributed to the script as well but was uncredited.
Universal also bought the rights to “The Murderer Invisible” by Philip Wylie. This book told of a man that used invisibility to gain power. This version may have had some of its themes and elements leaked into the Invisible Man and so online Philip Wylie is also credited for the script.
Possibly the most challenging part of The Invisible Man (besides writing the script) was figuring out the complex special effects. John P Fulton (nicknamed “The Doctor”) dressed the lead actor, Claude Rains, in black velvet and shot him against a black backdrop. They then combined this with separate shots of the set.
The most difficult shot was when he was in front of a mirror, which was four pieces of film composited together: the back of the invisible man, the room that he is seated in, the wall that is in the reflection, and the front of the invisible man as he unwraps.
In order to create a mask, special effects artists covered Rains’ head in plaster, only allowing him to breathe through straws. This was incredibly difficult for him because Rains had been gassed during WWI and had lost 90% of his vision in one eye. He was also very claustrophobic. But, the special effects were the biggest draw for audiences, making the film a hit.
When it came time to choose a leading man for the film, James Whale insisted on Claude Rains, an actor from the London Theater that had never been on screen before. Laemmle reluctantly agreed, and another actor quit because he refused to be billed with an unknown.
The studio’s first choice was Boris Karloff, but there was a disagreement so he walked off.
Claude Rains had a very heavy Cockney accent that he had overcome to be a stage actor. Whale found his voice to be mesmerizing, which was the most important aspect of the part considering the audience would never see his face.
The story is that Whale was in a screening room and they were watching screen tests. A voice came on with a terrible performance and he said “that’s it! That’s the man I have to have.” Everyone thought he was crazy because of Rains’ failed screen tests.
Rains went on to become a beloved character actor.
Rains acted alongside Gloria Stuart, who played his on-screen fiance. She said that even though Rains was invisible, he still managed to upstage her.
You may know Gloria Stuart more as the elderly Rose in the movie Titanic.
Cultural Impact
The film was popular enough and called for a continuation of The Invisible Man with a series of movies.
The Invisible Man Returns (where Vincent Price played Claude Rains’ successor!), The Invisible Woman, The Invisible Agent, and The Invisible Man’s Revenge.
Even though the Invisible Man made an appearance in “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein,” he also got his own film where “Abbott and Costello Meet The Invisible Man.”
There was also a “Son of the Invisible Man” sketch in the 1987 film Amazon Women on the Moon.
This was a funny spoof of the Invisible Man where his son thinks he has recreated the formula for invisibility.
More recently, Universal teamed up with horror studio Blumhouse to remake The Invisible Man. The movie was a box office hit at the beginning of 2020 and revitalized the hope of more successful remakes of Universal’s classic monster movies.
The Invisible Man is a great example of how the early talkies really started pushing the technical aspects of film. They began working on special effects that may be taken for granted today. Screenwriter RC Sherriff called it, “the first talkie to let itself go on trick photography.”
The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
After James Whale spent years avoiding the inevitable, Universal insisted on making a sequel to Frankenstein. Originally called Return of Frankenstein, the film went through many changes until Whale ultimately agreed to direct (after Carl Laemmle Sr. refused to fund another one of his films.) Whale wanted to be an A-list movie director. He may now be remembered, however, more than any of the A-list directors of the time.
Once he agreed to make the movie, Whale decided that it would be a satire of sex roles, and focused on a part of the original novel when Frankenstein failed to create a companion for his monster. Whale turned down several screenplays. He then started to give ideas to the writers. He eventually hired John Balderson to pen the script.
Some of Whale’s ideas included the tiny people invented by Dr. Pretorius, and the opening scene depicting the very night when Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein. James Whale also insisted that the same actress play Mary Shelley and The Bride. This was to show that beautiful people like Mary Shelley could have a fiend within.
In some ways, Bride of Frankenstein is superior to its predecessor. It was more visually accomplished thanks to cinematographer John Mescall, who used Rembrandt lighting to make the film appear dramatic. Art director Charles Hall perfected the aesthetic of the film’s time and place.
Mescall used orthochromatic film and blue gel lights that made the monsters’ blue-green makeup appear white on film. To distinguish their dead-like appearance from the other characters, red was added to the make-up of the other actors. They were also lit with warmer lights.
While the first film had no music, the legendary Frans Waxman delivered an iconic score that would become a landmark of the Universal monster movies. Waxman created motifs for each major character, giving the bride a three-note melody.
English actress Elsa Lanchester played the titular bride and Mary Shelley. Her appearance and performance became just as iconic as Boris Karloff’s Frankenstein.
Lanchester came up with the idea of The Bride’s hiss because of her experience feeding swans in the park. She noticed that if she got too close to the creatures, they would hiss at her.
The Bride is the only female Universal Monster and they wanted to make sure that she was still somewhat attractive.
They used a wire cage on top of her head and wove her hair in with some extra hair and the iconic white lightning streak.
Make-up legend Jack Pierce spent hours perfecting the scar on her neck. Lanchester later said that she thought it could have been bought for 10 cents at a joke shop.
Boris Karloff made a much-anticipated return as Frankenstein’s Monster. His character was given actual lines in the film, which Karloff didn’t think worked with his character. He felt the monster was far more interesting as a silent creature. After this film, he would only play the character one more time.
Karloff injured his back while filming the first Frankenstein. Now that he was a star, extra precautions were taken to ensure that didn’t happen again.
Jack Pierce re-imagined Karloff’s original make-up with some updates.
Karloff had gained a bit of weight so he was not as gaunt as in the first film.
Pierce added a rubber forehead to lengthen his face. He also added burns and singed his hair.
Colin Clive reprised his role as Henry Frankenstein. Ernest Thesiger plays Dr. Pretorious, the scientist that has created small people in jars. Thesiger was a well-known British stage actor before his career in film. Even though Dwight Frye’s character dies in the first movie, he actor returns as another character in Bride of Frankenstein.
The Bride of Frankenstein surpassed the original in some ways, making it one of the most iconic films in Universal’s collection. It’s the most beloved of all the monster sequels and is synonymous with the first film.
It has influenced other films such as how it appears in The Bride of Chucky and Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie.
James Whale was able to get some overt Christian imagery and sacrilegious material past the censors, though about 15 minutes of the film were cut. One scene was cut because it showed a “low-cut” women’s bodice.
The film is both a compelling look at the horrors of mob mentality and a biting satire on sex roles in relationships.
The Wolfman (1941)
The other films we discussed were based on novels and current events. But the last movie that we will cover this week had more personal inspiration. The Wolf Man is considered by some to be Universal’s final monster. It was made after the studio’s original founding family, the Laemmles, were no longer at the helm. The story focused on Larry Talbot, a man that unknowingly encountered a werewolf while visiting his father in Wales. He soon learns that he cannot escape the fate of becoming a wolf himself.
The concept of werewolves was not new. There are stories of humans crossing into the animal world from Greek mythology, Norse and German myths, and fairytales.
People born with conditions that caused excess body hair were often the subject of spectacle and rumors, even as late as the early 20th century. In European folklore, the wolf man was linked with the vampire. Bram Stoker’s original Dracula was even a mix of the two mythical beings.
The Wolf Man began as another possible Boris Karloff film. While that never came to be, Universal did release Werewolf of London in 1935.
The screenplay for The Wolf Man followed a young boy named Christoph. It was set in the Bavarian Alps where Christoph was kidnapped by the wolves that killed his family. He becomes a werewolf when he is rescued. He changes within the confessional. Universal ultimately feared what the Catholic church might think, and the project was abandoned.
When the new blood at Universal wanted its own original monster movies, they called on Curt Siodmak to pick up the project. He was told that the film already had a cast and a budget, and was only given 10 weeks to write a screenplay. Siodmak was Jewish and had escaped Germany as Hitler rose to power. His inspiration for the tragic storyline came from this experience.
The Wolf Man illustrated how the world can suddenly turn into utter chaos, and how seemingly likable people can become monsters; just like the wolf man.
Siodmak spent a lot of time researching the folklore surrounding Lycanthropy. He was ultimately proud that he brought the legends of the werewolf out of obscurity and into mainstream American culture.
The film took only three weeks to shoot. Director George Waggner and cinematographer Joseph Valentine used ambiguous imagery so that the audience got to decide: was Talbot actually becoming a wolf? Or was it all in his head? Set designer Jack Otterson crafted an interior forest set obscured by fog.
Universal pulled out the stops with an all-star cast.
Claude Rains appears as Larry Talbot’s father. Bela Lugosi makes an appearance as the wolf that bites Talbot in the beginning of the film.
Since Universal was so proud of their cast for this movie, they did a gimmick of showing the actors in a clip from the movie in the beginning credits. They had only ever done this with the film “The Black Cat.”
Lon Chaney Jr, son of the famed horror actor, got his first role as The Ghost of Frankenstein. He finally got his own role when he became Larry Talbot AKA the Wolf Man.
This came about after his father passed away because Lon Chaney was adamant that his son not be in the world of acting.
Jack Pierce spent four hours gluing yak hair onto Chaney after his wolf transformation. What was worse was how much it hurt to remove the hair at the end of the day.
Lon Chaney Jr played the part in all 5 films! He was especially proud of The Wolf Man and received more fan mail than any actor at Universal at the time.
Evelyn Ankers plays Gwen.
Though Evelyn worked with Lon Chaney Jr. on several films, they were not known to like each other. Chaney would often scare her purposely while in makeup.
Evelyn had worked in films where she had to hide her British accent and take on an American one. In this film, she had to reverse that process and go back to her British accent.
The Wolf Man premiered just before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Many assumed the event would keep audiences from the movies, but the opposite happened. The Wolf Man was a hit, not necessarily for its escapism, but because it depicted a man-beast during a time when mankind seemed to be at its most monstrous.
Siodmak’s script introduced the idea that a werewolf could only be killed by a silver bullet or another silver object. This has become the accepted lore for werewolves.
When Universal realized that the ending of Wolf Man had Larry Talbot dead, they asked Siodmak to bring their blockbuster monster back to life. Luckily with monster movies, death is not always the end.
In the next film, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, grave diggers inadvertently bring Larry Talbot back to life. Horrified, he spends the rest of the movie trying to die.
Both he and Frankenstein’s monster are returned to full capacity and they fight.
In House of Frankenstein, the Wolf Man and Frankenstein are thawed out from ice. Scientists say that they can cure the wolf man with a brain transplant.
Larry Talbot falls for a young woman before the surgery and she decides to kill him instead. She shoots him and he appears dead.
House of Dracula, the next Wolf Man movie, gives no explanation of how Talbot is alive.
Dracula however is explained to have a rare blood disease
They discover that Talbot’s illness is due to pressure on the brain. A much less invasive surgery is done and he is finally cured of his curse!
Larry Talbot/The Wolf Man’s last film was Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein
His cure from the previous film was not addressed in this film. However, he is kind of a good guy in this one!
The Wolf Man undoubtedly made a lasting impact on horror cinema. Not only did it bring the concept of werewolves to the mainstream, it inspired many incarnations of the monster, like An American Werewolf in London.
Although he went on to write other screenplays, Siodmak considered The Wolf Man his greatest personal achievement.
As we said in our previous episode, the Universal Monster films of the 1930s and 40s are incredibly influential for not just horror, but cinema in general. Although we didn’t get to talk about every one of the films in the collection, we did our best to cover the highlights.
Although we lovingly refer to these classics as “monster” movies, they have become much more than that. These films have complex undertones, dark humor, and characters that show us a wide range of mankind. So we had a blast learning all about these so-called monsters. In fact, you could say it was a scream! ;)
Sources:
DVD commentary
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/king-tuts-tomb-discovered/
IMDB